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As I touched upon in my last response, we have recently been approaching forms of data analysis apprehensively. Although they were in no doubt useful, we were paying close attention to what they may lack -issues in code, inability for computers to replicate/understand human sentiments etc. However, in our more recent readings, the highlight has been more so on the potential of data analysis – in a mostly positive sense. As one of my colleagues said, the Jefferson reading demonstrated how “digging deeper into the absent stories can help piece together many more voices” that were lost in history. The current article demonstrated just how powerful certain forms of analyses can be in extrapolating data. “From the merest sliver of metadata about a single modality of relationship between people…we have gotten a picture of a kind of social network between individuals, a sense of the degree of connection between organizations, and some strong hints of who the key players are in this world.” As I read the article I felt as though I was watching one of those movie scenes where the “FBI” hacks into all the security cameras in the world, pins one blurry image from Grand Central, and magnifies a picture 300x to reveal a crystal clear picture of the suspects face. Whereas those scenes are entertaining given their impressive (and impossible) nature, this data analysis was similar AND possible. Too cool.